Decision Desk HQ called the race for New Jersey Governor at 8:18 p.m. ET with 19% of the votes counted. At that point, Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli had 35.8% of the vote, and Democrat candidate Rebecca “Mikie” Sherrill had 63.7%. Thus, Sherrill will be sworn in as the next governor of New Jersey on Jan. 20, 2026.
Libertarian Party candidate Vic Kaplan received 0.3% of the vote, and Socialist Worker Party candidate Joanne Kuniansky picked up 0.2%.
At least New Jersey was already blue, so these results are a wash politically.
This was Ciattarelli’s third run at becoming New Jersey’s governor. The 63-year-old lost his party’s primary in 2017. In 2021, as the Republican nominee, he came unexpectedly close to defeating Democratic incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy. Prior to running for governor, Ciattarelli had a successful career as a businessman and entrepreneur. He also served in New Jersey politics at many different levels, including in the Raritan Borough Council, on the Somerset County Freeholder Board, and in the State Assembly.
Sherrill, 53, has prior public service experience as well, including stints as a U.S. Navy officer (something she repeated ad nauseam in her campaign ads) and assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey during the Obama administration, a post she left in 2016. Currently, she is a fourth-term U.S. Rep. Much of Sherrill’s time in D.C., as well as her current gubernatorial campaign, has been structured around “fighting” President Donald Trump.
Sherrill went into Election Day with an estimated nearly 300,000-vote lead among early voters by party registration.
The Democratic National Committee recognized what a high-profile and close race this was, and sent over $3 million and deployed Barack Obama, the last Democrat to generate actual enthusiasm among the party’s voters, to aid the campaign. But despite the DNC’s efforts, Sherrill’s lead remained stubbornly stuck in the single digits, ultimately shrinking to hover around the margin of error during early voting and on Election Day.
For its part, the Republican National Committee pitched in “five full-time staffers, [and] 50 county captains over 15,000 volunteers, who include attorneys and poll workers,” according to ABC News. In addition, the RNC also dropped a voter mobilization tool called VotePro to help optimize the party’s ground game. President Trump has been touting Ciattarelli for N.J. Gov. as well.
Early Vote Action founder Scott Presler set his sights on flipping New Jersey from red to blue after he helped do so in Pennsylvania in the 2024 election, through his untiring efforts to register massive numbers of new Republican voters. On election day, he emphasized that Ciattarelli seemed to enjoy an enthusiasm advantage over Sherrill among each candidate’s respective voters.
Related: UPDATE: Virginia Governor’s, Lieutenant Governor’s Races Called
At no point during the race did any poll show Ciattarelli beating Sherrill. The closest Ciattarelli came to winning a poll was an Emerson College poll conducted Sept. 22-23 that found the two candidates in a dead heat. However, in 2021, the final polling average for New Jersey governor predicted Democrat Phil Murphy to defeat then-candidate Ciattarelli by 9.3%. The final tally, though, gave Murphy a much narrower win — just 3.2% — a 6.1% discrepancy.
The last Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, stepped down in 2018 after serving two terms, the limit in New Jersey.
